Cooking the Hook - NEW

I'm coming up on the end of the first hard edit and it's giving me the willies. I'm asking myself if I were watching this on Netflix, would I scream at the TV or go down on one knee and say "yesss" with tears in my eyes and a smile on my face. Am I there yet? Nope.

"A drug-dealing ladies man and part-time assassin with psychic skills meets the woman he'll mend most of his ways for. A new age con artist herself, she's got her own brand of psychic ability and a troubling history of being on hand for untimely deaths.  When they meet, he’s on the lam from the life and she's married to a gangster wannabe who's blackmailing her to keep her in line. Cosmic lust comes before trust, but they must learn to work together if they hope to thwart her husband's plans to sell her and her secrets to settle a deadly debt."                   “So, just how do we turn this darkness into light?" she said and shuffled the cards. The deck was old and soft and made a purring sound in her hands. He picked up her thick braid, squeezed it gently and whispered in her ear,            "One well-deserving motherfucker at a time.” Then he wrapped the braid around her neck, tilted her he...

The last hurricane left the great fountain in Audubon Park filled with brackish water and, unaccountably, a dead three-foot long sand shark. The fish had putrefied in the heat and when the power came back on and the fountain started up, the whole east end was bathed in the gag-worthy perfume of rotting magnolias and liquefied fish. Tilla had left all the window to her apartment open to help dry the floors. She had been lucky. Home at the time of the tide-driven surge, only mere inches of dirty sewer and seawater had made its way over the top step into her place. She'd had time to get things up off the carpet. Pulled all the books from the bottom shelves to the top. Picked up all her shoes and Kip's bedding, piling everything on the dining room table. The carpet, which was shitty in the first place, was doomed, as was the couch and love seat. The frilly plaid skirts carrying the rank water up into the padding. She was sick of that old shit anyway. Kip whined behind her on th...

Like a mangy beast, the manuscript shifts, and growls as I comb the knots out of its fur, careful around the wounds. Pick fleas and crush them with my teeth. Soothe.  Smooth, but leave it wild and living, uncivilized, uncultured.

Sometime in the night, this happened. Yes. Those are my first five pages he's chewing on. It doesn't hurt. When was the last time you read a book that kept you up too late, made you laugh, made you sweat and made you say "NOW WHAT?" and made you sad when the ride was finally over? Me neither. That's what I'm writing.